I recently posted a review of Overachiever's Diary, a new book by Louis Tharp. The book is comprised of emails and practice outlines Tharp, as swim coach for the West Point Triathlon Club, sent to his cadets. While the review hits upon the major points of my feelings toward Overachiever's Diary, a few things have stuck with me since I published the article.

I realize now that as I was reading it, I was slowly being humbled. It's not that I think I'm such a great swimmer, but that I always figured I had hit my peak in college and that was that.

Tharp writes on page 196: "Your potential for continuous improvement is decreased when your pacing is erratic because you use too much energy."

That hit me where I was living, swimming wise.

As a 50 and 100 freestyler, my pacing was always "as fast as possible but don't die" and my energy output was "as much as possible but don't die." Needless to say, I tended to die at the end of a 100.

Reading how Tharp challenges his cadets-some good swimmers, others not as good but getting better-to latch on to their potential and continually improve did more for me than any How-to-Swim book ever could. It made me realize that even now, without being an in-season swimmer, I can still work to become faster.

As a budding triathlete, I usually see myself as a swimmer who then bikes and runs. I constantly try to be one of the leaders of my wave out of the water because that's where I think I belong. The problem has always been, however, that I'd be pretty beat going into T1. If the jog to the transition area was longer than 100 yards, I'd be toast before I even hopped on the bike.

Tharp explains that good triathletes know how to pace themselves to swim fast while using as little energy as possible. He then explains the how and why of doing exactly that. Most importantly, however, he reiterates something that should be pretty obvious: It's a triathlon. Not a swimming race. Just because I'm nearing shore doesn't mean I need to give it all I got. I don't need to be first, fifth or tenth out of the water. Again, brings me back to the humble-thing.

One more thing...another part of the book I loved was his section titled: Where Are Your Toys Henry Ford? There's a line in there, "Toys are aquatic crack," that made me laugh out loud. Tharp's view is that certain swimming equipment-pull buoys, kick boards, find-are used as crutches rather than as aids to become better. It definitely gave me something to thing about.

I plan to return to this book in June or so, when I'm in the middle of the summer tri season but before the open water swims of I Saw, I Swam, I Swimmed Again. I recognize that its value isn't so much in simply teaching me how to swim, but in preparing me to become a swimmer who is constantly improving.

Tomorrow, my team Sea Nettle Sandwich will compete in the open water La Jolla Cove Ten-Mile Relay swim. The three of us--myself, Active's own Energizer Bunny Toby Guillette, and Miss "Last-year-I-did-the-race-solo" Carrie Smith--have been a little concerned with the fact that we signed up as "skins." No wetsuits for us. The air temp should be around 60 degrees F for the 7 a.m. start, but the real worry is the water quality.

Today marked San Diego's first rainfall in 150 days. It doesn't take much to predict weather out here (and based on what I've seen, newscasts here haven't progressed all that far from the Anchorman days). But once it rains, people are warned not to go swimming for a least a day. The water washes away all the grime, oils and other bad stuff that collects in the ground, on the roads, and in gutters and drains, funneling it into the ocean. Local surfers and swimmers have recounted to me how they've gotten sick from going in the water after a rainfall.

Despite our governor's leanings toward environmentalism, it seems California still has a ways to go. As for me and my team, I'm hopeful that because the race is in the Cove, the water won't be as affected as if it were off a beach. If the worst part of the swim is the water temp, I'll take it. This will be a marathon swim for me, three laps of one mile each (Toby and I have stuck Carrie with an extra fourth lap). If we each average a half hour per lap, the event should take us five hours. I'm thinking it will be just like championship meets from high school and college, only without the high-pitched screaming.